Treasurer’s lawyers want charges dropped

MUNCIE – Defense attorneys for John Dorer want the 47 criminal charges pending against the Delaware County treasurer to be dismissed.

In a motion filed this week, lawyers Pamela Buchanan and James MacAbee asked Special Judge Dennis Carroll of Madison County to throw the case against their client out of court.

They maintain in part that if Dorer is prosecuted for failing to deposit public funds by the end of the next business day, as required by state law, similar charges should be filed against Delaware County Sheriff Mike Scroggins and “perhaps the honorable judges of Delaware County.”

A total of 44 of the 47 counts filed against the treasurer in April accused him of failing to deposit funds in a timely manner between April 2009 and June 2011.

In their motion, the defense attorneys say those counts are “defective” because “the facts regarding (Dorer’s) alleged conduct ... do not constitute criminal offenses.”

The lawyers noted a State Board of Account audit for 2010 in which auditors reported the sheriff’s department made 61 of 100 deposits “later than the next business day.”

“Not withstanding the fact that the Delaware County sheriff allegedly violated the very same statute the Delaware County prosecutor alleges Mr. Dorer has violated, (the prosecutor) has not filed a single charge against (the sheriff),” they wrote.

The defense team — as they did in an earlier motion that resulted in Delaware Circuit Court 1 Judge Marianne Vorhees withdrawing from the case — also referred to a 2010 audit reporting 75 percent of deposits made by the county’s juvenile probation department came later than the next business day. That department is overseen by the Circuit Court judges.

Buchanan and MacAbee also submitted SBA audits noting “public servants in every county surrounding Delaware County have engaged in the exact same conduct as Mr. Dorer,“ but none have faced related criminal prosecution.

They also suggest their client has been over-charged. If convicted of all 47 charges, the attorneys contend, Dorer would face up to 689 years in prison. That potential punishment “is so severe and out of proportion to the gravity of the offenses Mr. Dorer has allegedly committed that it shocks public sentiment and the judgment of reasonable people.”

Eric Hoffman, Delaware County Prosecutor Jeffrey Arnold’s chief trial deputy, said they were preparing a response that will contest many of the assertions made in this week’s defense filing.

A hearing on this week’s motion to dismiss has not yet been scheduled. Carroll was recently appointed by the Indiana Supreme Court to preside over the case.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @Douglas WalkerSP.